Konstantin Scherbakov was born in city Barnaul (Altay region of Russia) . The 20-year-old pianist's phenomenal victory at the Rachmaninoff Competition (Moscow, 1983) with Rachmaninoff's less known 4th Piano Concerto carried a symbolic sign: it made the pianist aware of his interests, confirmed them and set his future artistic goals. His mission to promote the forgotten, unknown, but no less beautiful music has become apparent.
Over the next ten years, Scherbakov experimented with different styles, explored expressive possibilities, tried to find his own way and developed his artistic capacities. He gave hundreds of concerts in the former Soviet Union and worked intensively at the State Radio Studios. He studied and played the complete works of Sergei Rachmaninoff (Scherbakov rediscovered and promoted some of his forgotten music), complete Prokofiev’s Sonatas, complete works by Ravel and works by other French composers. However, at all times he remained faithful to his favourite composers Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin. In 1990, Scherbakov made his European début at the XX Music Festival in Asolo, Italy where he played the complete works by Rachmaninoff in four evenings. Swiatoslav Richter was there and praised the playing. Concert engagements in Western Europe immediately followed.
After the pianist moved to Switzerland in 1992, he received an invitation from Klaus Heymann, the founder of "Naxos" to make a CD with a repertoire that had never been recorded before.The other important invitation of this kind came in 1995 from the record label EMI Classics, which recognised Scherbakov's sophisticated virtuosity, artistic sensitivity and musical adventurousness. The complete piano works by Shostakovich – a work that achieved particularly resounding success with the recording of the 24 Preludes and Fugues. The winner of the Cannes Classical Award at MIDEM in 2001, this recording left a lasting trace on Scherbakov's concert career, which culminated in his Salzburg Festival début in 2005
Recently, the “Lifelong Beethovenian” (Hi-Fi News) has completed the third massive project. Like only a few pianists before him, he studied, played in concerts and recorded all nine Symphonies by Beethoven in Liszt’s transcription. The widespread enthusiasm of the music world resulted in the German Critics' Prize and many concert invitations – to Paris, New York, Auckland, Vienna, Berlin and Moscow and to piano Festivals like Ruhr, Luzern and Bad Kissingen. His conducting debut in Milano he made with a Beethoven program. For many years, the pianist has performed the complete Symphonies cycle and Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas at the Tonhalle Zurich and the National Concert Hall in Taipei. In 2015, he will open the Beethoven Festival in Bonn.
Since 1998 Konstantin Scherbakov has been Professor at the Zurich University of Arts; many of his students received prizes at international piano competitions, most notably Yulianna Avdeeva, the winner of the last Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
Konstantin Scherbakov as been a jury member of many international competitions, such as ARD Munich, Busoni (Bolzano), Liszt (Weimar), Rio de Janeiro, Youth Tchaikovsky (Seoul), Havana etc.
